


911

by weatherby



Category: Hard Core Logo (1996)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-09
Updated: 2009-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-04 07:09:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatherby/pseuds/weatherby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end of Billy Tallent's life.  The slash is sort of here, but mostly it's not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	911

Bucky is talking.  Fuck Bucky.  Billy doesn't know what he's saying.  Doesn't care, either.  The accent is more than a bit fucking pretentious and when it comes to it, Billy thinks Bucky is a bit of a cunt.  More than a bit.  If they made houses shaped like cunts, Bucky would still be a bigger cunt than that.  If that makes any sense.  And he serves martinis, martinis in the middle of his tacky kitchen with the refrigerator that has rust in some spots, just like everyone else's refrigerator, and the kitchen table that's got one leg balanced with a guitar pick.  Who the fuck is Bucky Haight, anyway.

Joe is motioning at the window.  Bruce, Bruce and Danny are outside and they look pissed off.  Ha ha.  Figures.  Billy closes his eyes and tries to make the lip of his martini glass hum.  A slight hitch in Bucky's monologue as Joe gets up and out the door, but he keeps talking anyway.  Bucky probably lives for the sound of his own voice, probably talks to himself on a daily basis, maybe more schizo than John-O.

Billy opens his eyes a slit, watches Joe talking to Bruce on the porch.  Bruce's face gets red when he's mad.  Good to know, Billy thinks, because he's been trying to figure out just how much Bruce resembles his Uncle Byron, and Uncle Byron turns beet red just before he hits the wall.  

So Bruce didn't know about Bucky either.  Not entirely surprising, though it did cross Billy's mind that Joe and Bruce might have thought this whole thing up just so Joe could make a movie and Bruce could jerk off over directing a good documentary for a change.  Joe thought he was good for movies, five or six years ago, despite the acne scars and the teeth.  Billy thought he was better for movies.  He sighs and leans back in the chair, feels a tear in the plastic under his back.  

Fucking Bucky Haight.  King of punk rock with a shitty kitchen table set and a pen made to look like a syringe.  Like that's anything original, like there aren't six hundred thirteen-year-old punk wannabes using those pens to fill out their algebra homework.  Fucking lame ass cunt.

"Whoa," says Pipe, randomly, and Billy glances at him.  He's not sure if Pipe is saying 'whoa' about something Bucky has said or because he's just fucking bored.  Either one seems equally feasible.

Joe comes back inside.  Again, Bucky pauses kind of, as Joe steps over the other Joe and Danny and John to get back to his seat.  He glances at Billy as he sits, the kind of glance where you think you're safe because the other person surely isn't looking and they won't catch you, and so when Billy grins, Joe's eyes dart back to Bucky to pretend this glance was never exchanged.

Joe sips his martini like a fucking rich bitch wife stuck up on a yacht travelling towards the Caribbean.

Bucky mentions something about blood transfusions.  Is he trying to get them to donate blood?  Billy's not signed up as an organ donor on his driver's licence and he won't be giving out any of his fucking blood, fuck you very much, because Bucky is a fucking cunt anyway.

He wouldn't have come on this reunion shit if not for Bucky, Billy realises, or knows, or thinks he already knew, or, he guesses, he just didn't give a fuck to think about it before but now that Bucky's got his legs back it seems a little gay that he's here.  Bucky is why he was here in the first place and why the fuck did Joe make it up?  It can't be that he just wanted the money.  Joe does acoustic shit, Joe Dick unplugged, Joe Dick unpunked, Joe Dick the dick, he can get money when he wants as long as he keeps his mohawk.  Why does Joe Dick want to fuck over Bucky Haight?  Bucky, that's another funny question, why isn't Bucky saying anything?

Bucky Haight, legend.  So much of a legend that no one bothered to call and see if he really got shot.  No one gives a shit about Bucky Haight unless their name is Joe Dick.

Billy tries not to laugh, and that's even worse, because it only makes things funnier.  Joe kicks him in the ankle, sloshes martini on one of the potholders.  He looks like a girl caught in a mosh pit by accident.  Sometimes Trevor got that look before they went on stage at Lollapalooza.  Trevor always had stage fright.  Fucking lame for a big band like that.  No one in Hard Core Logo got stage fright except Joe, Joe who didn't admit it anyway but bounced around and paced and shook but tried to be cool, always cool, because the great fucking Joe Dick is one cool ass motherfucker.

Anyway, Joe, he looks like a girl caught in a mosh pit by accident, like someone's about to drop a steel-toed boot to his head, like he's going to get pulled down onto the floor, the ground, whatever you want to call it.

Billy would still be in L.A. if Bucky Haight had never got shot, the cunt.  Bucky Haight never got shot.  Joe lied.  Billy laughs.

\---

Joe smells.  Billy probably smells the same, but he doesn't mind his own smell so much.  Joe just fucking stinks.  Crammed in the back of the van, all you can fucking smell is Joe's armpits and vodka and cigarettes.  Oh, wait, that's Billy, too.  Pipe smells like a barnyard fucking animal, even though John is the one who, if Billy remembers right, was making out with the goat.  Billy hopes to god that he doesn't remember right.

"Will ya get the fucking blood off your mug, Pipefelcher?"  Joe spits on the floor and straightens his legs out.  The toe of his boot digs into Billy's knee but it's made of steel, so it's possible Joe doesn't know.  In theory, anyway, but the boot shifts just slightly and Billy knows he's doing it on purpose.

"Ohhhh, so now we have to wash our faces every day, is that right?" Pipe turns around all the way and rests his arm on the steering wheel like they're fucking parked.

"Look at the road, you horse fucker!"  Billy smacks his newspaper against the wall of the van.

"Now we have to look at the road, too!  Sorry I'm not so PRISTINE as you guys!"

"I th-th-th-th-think m-maybe I sh . . . sh-sh-should d-d-d-dri-"

"FUCK!" Joe pounds the back of John's seat a few times until John is quivering like a baby.  "Pipe, get the fuckin' blood off yer face before we get pulled the fuck over for cannibalism.  Johnny, I don't really wanna die today, so don't even think about getting your ass anywhere near the steering wheel.  You got that?"

"Y-y-y-"

"That's not buddies," Billy remarks.  He folds his arms behind his head and grins.

"And fuck you too, assmunch."  Joe still has eyeliner on.  Why the fuck did Joe put on eyeliner in the first place.  He looks like a dink.

Billy tilts his chin and taps his pinky and thumb on his knee.  Joe never moves his foot.

\---

"Uh . . ."

"Come on, fag.  Co-"

"Tch.  Don't call me a fag, ya fuckin' queen.  You -"

"Oh, what's that supposed to mean?  What the fuck is that?"

"Well, I don't know, Bill, I thought you'd like bein' a queen, it's nice and rock star."

"SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU FUCKIN'--SHIT!  FUCK YOU!"

"Fine.  Fag."

"You just missed the motherfucking road."

\---

When he gives the telegram to Terry it's fucking stupid, but he realises he doesn't want Joe to hear about it on a college radio shit station.  Fuck.  Fuck.  Fuck!  Joe doesn't even listen to the radio but he'll know.  Maybe Joe doesn't have to know at all.  Oh, fucking right, Bill, you can just go play Jenifur without Joe noticing, Joe will never notice if you're gone, right?  Dumbass.  

Fuck.  Fuck.  Fuck.  Fuck.  Fuck you, Joe Dick.

They're going to play for 30,000 people in Toronto, that's an assload of people and maybe the Hard Cores will get back together for good.  They can't do that without him.  Jenifur is a professional band, goddamnit, he can make money instead of fucking off all the time.

One day at a time, Billy thinks.  Edmonton first and then Toronto.  Who the fuck ever said he had to tell Joe what he was doing anyway.  Oh, motherfucker.  This was supposed to be good luck, he was in a good mood until Terry looked so excited you'd have thought someone slipped him a vibrator.  It's HIS FUTURE!  Billy's!  He isn't going to go and fuck it all up for Joe!  No, you fucker.  Billy's going to be thirty-five, thirty-five years old and still watching the back of Joe's neck getting thicker, softer.  Billy hates Joe Dick.  

"I have to go."

Terry looks more than a little heartbroken.

\---

This is what he wants, Billy realises, somewhere in the middle of Sonic Reducer.  He wonders sometimes if Joe likes to cover that song because of him.  Joe always glares at him when he sings it.  Then again, Joe glares at him a lot.  Billy loves it.

This is what he's meant to do, Billy decides.  The crowd for Jenifur won't be like this, the band won't be Johnny or Pipe or Joe.  It's insane, how happy just fucking deciding that makes him.

Joe knocks him away from the microphone over and over, rough and Billy sweats and this is what he loves.  Joe gives off a spoken word monologue about having your heart crushed.  He's so fucking melodramatic.  Billy thinks he's pulling it out of his ass like he does with the Bucky stuff.  Joe's as happy as he is.  There's a girl in the front row near Victoria with her shirt off and his name written on her tits.  John's on one of her arms and Joe's on the other.  He wonders where the hell she fit 'Pipefitter.'  Laughs and switches to a thumb pick.

This is the best show he's done in a long time.  They're on the fucking top of the world, or at least Billy is.  He's going to stay with Joe.  The decision is already made.

"-our hugely successful reunion tour.  It's also the end of Billy Tallent's fucking life."

Billy hardly hears what Joe has said before the meaty fist slams into his cheekbone and he hits the stage.  Jesus Christ, what the fuck?  This shit is the greatest.  Billy laughs and they roll, right off the stage and Joe's got his FUCKING RINGS ON that motherfucker!  Billy knees him in the groin, yanks on the shitty mohawk.  Everything goes too fast to know what happens.  The fans rip Joe away from him, grab Billy by the sweat on his arms.

Come on, come on, Billy thinks, and grins.  Joe.  He spits into Joe's face like Joe's done to him so many times, and Joe stretches out his arms and takes it.  This is fucking ON.  Him and Joe, friends, they've been doing this their whole lives.  Only Joe usually gets more into it than this.

And Joe walks away.  Billy thinks that's not buddies, but maybe Joe just changed his mind.  He's a whore like that.  He'll pin the whole thing on Billy later, give a bitch fest until Billy headbutts him into a wall or something.

Joe smashes the Strat and then, Billy fucking knows.  Oh, god, Joseph has his finished look, like he's done, or like it's too far, like Billy's going to kick the shit out of Bruce McDonald, that's what the look is like.  But even Billy knows.  So he leaves.


End file.
